The Minnesota Vikings will take on two of Sam Darnold’s former teams in the next two weeks. It starts this week with the San Francisco 49ers come into US Bank Stadium. Darnold was only in the 49ers organization for one year and probably still gets along with them very well. He got a very nice view of the Super Bowl this year and he got to learn from Kyle Shanahan. The Jets or Carolina might be a different story. The big one this year for the fans will be when Kirk Cousins rolls into Minneapolis later in the season. We all know the athletes want to perform well against their former squads. It can be out of spite or pride. Do they actually perform better?
Stats can be misleading and skew the perception of results, so it’s hard to pull together clean data. Justin Jefferson might get shut down if they’re blanketing him and Addison or other receivers get the targets. That doesn’t mean Jefferson didn’t play well. The same for every player, as it is a team sport.
I always think back to when I played sports growing up. I grew up playing semi-competitive recreational soccer from 6 to 18 years old. The program was similar to AAU Basketball or travel baseball. I always would have a few other clubs in Jacksonville I couldn’t wait to face. A lot of us went to the same camps and played against each other for years. I felt like I played my best those weeks. It’s been a theory of mine that the best athletes are able to find that level of emotional motivation for every game. Michael Jordan always found an angle. So, is there a 2nd gear? The answer is probably yes for some and no for others. Just ramblings on a mid week waiting for Sunday.
